John the Baptist tells us that Jesus's mission has two parts:
1. Take away the sin of the world.
2. Baptize with Holy Spirit and fire.
Much is said of sin and forgiveness, but little of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire. The Holy Spirit is the most important aspect of Christianity aside of Christ. It is the gift of Christ to the Church. He comes to do two main things in our lives among others: 1) to convict us of what sin is, and to give us remorse to genuinely repent and turn away from sin and 2) to give us the ability and capacity to resist the sinful urges in our fallen nature to a reasonable degree, though not total perfection, since we are still humans.
We see from our readings that the Holy Spirit was given after conversion to Christ and likely after water baptism. It was a practical experience, rather than a passive one. Let us take a step further in our confirmation to make the Holy Spirit active in our lives by learning to ask him to reveal his works in our lives daily.
Luke 3:15-18, 20-22; Acts 8:14-17
Sermon from The Table on 1/9/22.
